The windmill, to be located on the coast of Shanghai's suburban Chongming Island, is a joint project of the State Power Corporation and the World Bank designed to promote exploration of the abundant wind power along China's coast.

The country's established wind-power plants are mostly located in the hinterlands, with only a few islands off the coastal provinces of Fujian and Zhejiang hosting some small plants, according to sources from Shanghai Power, a subsidiary company under the State Power Corporation and the main developer of the project.

The new power plant, with a total investment of 200 million yuan (US$24 million), is expected to generate electricity by the first half of 2004 as a prototype that will allow big coastal cities to explore their wind power resources, according to Hu Chengyu, an official with Shanghai Power who is involved in the project.

The World Bank has offered a 20-year US$13-million loan for the pilot project.

Shanghai Power is now seeking international bidders for construction of the windmill facilities, according to Hu.

Earlier this year, Shanghai started to build a small 3,000-kilowatt windmill in its coastal Fengxian District as a first step toward using wind power for electricity generation.

The two windmills will be connected to the city's electricity network as a supplemental power sources during peak consumption times, according to Shanghai Power.

Shanghai expects to further explore renewable and environmentally friendly wind power by building a number of 300,000-kilowatt wind-power facilities within 10 to 15 years, according to Shanghai Power.

"We have been discussing such a plan," said Hu, who is in charge of wind-power utilization.

According to Hu, Shanghai Power has set up a subsidiary company - Shanghai Wind-Power Electricity Co Ltd - to promote the city's commercial exploration of wind power.

Shanghai now has more than 1 million kilowatts of coastal wind resource available, Hu said.

Wind-power electricity generation, which does not consume fossil fuels, could lower costs in the long run, Hu said.

China still lags far behind developed countries in exploring wind power. The total capacity of the country's established windmills, which are mainly in the hinterlands, has reached only around 400,000 kilowatts thus far, said Hu, quoting statistics from the State Power Corporation.

In Germany, however, the total capacity of windmills exceeds 8 million kilowatts, according to Hu.

(China Daily December 19, 2002)